UKIP election failure: ‘Their focus was too narrow’

Nigel Farage resigns as leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) after failing to secure a seat in parliament during a news conference in Broadstairs, on the south coast of Britain, May 8, 2015. (Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett) / Reuters

The UK Independence Party’s campaign at the 2015 general election was mainly focused on the topic of immigration which is an important issue but to get more seats you need more, Robert Oulds, Director of the Bruges Group, told RT.

RT:Will David Cameron stick to his
pre-election promise and hold an 'in-out' EU referendum?

Robert Oulds: He will have to. He’s made this
pledge… of course he made out his promises before, he did on the
Lisbon Treaty and reneged on that… But this time he must deliver
that pledge or he would just face an absolute storm from his own
backbenchers and from the public. He has promised this referendum
he now must deliver… He’s actually backed himself into a corner,
but I think he actually wants to have the debate because he is
going to use every arm of the state and all his political tactics
to win it, and try and lance what he would see as lots of boils
of EU skepticism, and try to defeat it because at heart David
Cameron remains supportive of Britain’s membership of the EU.

RO: Most people are generally EU skeptic, people
are really opposed to the EU, they don’t want further
integration, they would actually want powers to be rolled back
from Brussels to democratic institutions. But at the moment there
has been a constant drip-feed of scare stories about how terrible
things would be if Britain would want to leave the EU - all of
course absolutely bogus arguments, but I think this is having
somewhat of an effect at the moment, and David Cameron isn’t
actually making the EU skeptic case. He is arguing that there
should be some changes, but he doesn’t want Britain actually to
leave the EU, He actually supports [the membership] as do most of
the major political parties such as Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg.
Of course they may not be around in politics for much longer. But
the main political parties’ leadership does support Britain’s
membership in the EU. There is an attempt to try to scare people
into being less EU skeptic, which is having some effect. But
ultimately if there is to be a referendum we can get out
arguments across and show that Britain would better off out of
the EU.

RT:The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has won
just one seat so far.Is it a disappointing night?

RO: It’s a very disappointing night for them,
but really it’s somewhat to be expected because whenever there is
a general election it’s often a two parties squeeze, the main
political parties – Labour and Conservatives – take away votes ,
they dominate the airwaves. The main media outlets don’t usually
give UKIP much credit; they often highlight any gaffs they were
to make about other parties… So for them just having one seat was
always the likely outcome. And plus of course their focus was
very narrow - mainly focusing on the topic of immigration, which
is a very important issue for many people but to get more seats
you need more. So UKIP were always really going to manage to get
one seat because their focus is just too narrow.

‘It’s victory for Cameron, but there are big challenges ahead’

Although David Cameron won the 2015 UK general election it’s not
going to be easy to govern in a stable way as there is public
support for UKIP and a lot of it is within his own party, says
British journalist and political commentator Tom Gross.

RT:Do you think Cameron can believe his
luck? Was it luck?

Tom Gross: I guess there was an element of luck
but perhaps he ran a better campaign than a lot of pundits have
given him credit for, he has had definitely a resounding victory.
On the other hand, expectations were so low that if you actually
step back and look at the results - he’s got a wafer thin
majority and it’s not going to be that easy for him to govern in
a stable way. It’s the right wing of his own party who share a
lot of the views of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and
although UKIP only got one seat - they got around 13 percent of
the vote so there is a ground swell of public support for UKIP’s
right position. And a lot of that public support is also
contained within his party. So it’s a victory for him, partly
maybe through luck, but there are big challenges ahead.

RT:Cameron promised a referendum on EU
membership.Do you think London's relationship with Europe could
change?

TG: A couple of years ago I would have thought
that the British would not vote to leave the EU, but I think it
is a really distinct possibility now. There is a lot of antipathy
towards the EU in Britain. Cameron is planning in 2017 to have a
referendum, a simple question – in or out – and it’s going to be
a closely fought referendum. Britain doesn’t hold referendums
very often, but as we saw with the Scottish referendum last
September when the powers in London decided to hold that
referendum they were confident that the Scottish nationalists
would not succeed. In fact it was a very close referendum and
even though the Scottish nationalists narrowly lost the
referendum, it’s not the end of the story as we see because we
see this enormous victory for the Scottish nationalists at the
general election [on Thursday]. In a way they let the genie out
of the bottle with Scottish nationalism. Perhaps by holding a
referendum on the EU they are also letting the genie out of the
bottle with British nationalism among those people in British
society that would rather go it alone and not belong to the EU
anymore.

Would UK be better off outside the EU?

James Meadway, Senior economist at the independent think-tank The
New Economics Foundation commented on what advantages London
financial institutions have being in the EU and what might happen
if the UK leaves the EU.

“…In terms of the City of London financial services, [the UK]
has a very particular set of interests and developed
relationships with European institutions… Previously, George
Osborne as Chancellor [of the Exchequer] was very keen on arguing
the City of London’s case inside Europe, arguing to avoid
financial transactions, taxes and the rest of it, and I expect
that to continue from this point onwards. It’s an open question
as to whether or not finance would gain or not gain from Britain
being in or out of the EU. On balance they probably prefer to
continue as a member and to gain some of the advantages that this
involves for them,” he said.

Speaking about the UK’s possible EU exit and whether it would
benefit the country, Meadway said “it’s not a simple
either-or or yes-no question”.

“It’s from those either-or questions. You can present cases
either ways. There are some estimates out there that you go
through the potential loss of trade, the damage to perhaps the
labor market, salary issues… The other way of looking at this of
course is you might think that the EU is itself a burden on the
rest of the economy, it costs a large amount of money to remain
as a member, that it might have all sorts of consequences in
labor markets – that would be UKIP and Nigel Farage’s argument.
And you might argue the benefits go the other way. Either way you
look at it it’s not a simple either-or or yes-no question. It’s
going to depend on who you want to argue for and whose interest
you want to look for. And that’s probably going to inform most
people’s judgments when it comes to a referendum.”

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.